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Irish people with English accents

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,551 ✭✭✭panda100


    stimpson wrote:
    My missus spent her formative years in England but has spent most of her life here. I thought she was an Aussie when I met her.


    I get that all the time. I was born and raised by Irish parents in London and moved back here when I was 15. I still have a very strong English accent despite being here 20 years now. My brother was 18 when he moved over and picked up the irish accent very quickly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,832 ✭✭✭heldel00


    That "comedian" Alison Spittle really gets on my nerves. She has a midlands accent but lived/ was born in UK so pronounces everything beginning with a "th" as an "f". Beyond annoying.

    "Ah shure ya know yorself me Mammy finks fat I'm hilarious so i fought I'd inflict myself on the nation!"

    And TV/ radio presenters actually draw attention to it so it is now part of her schtick. Grrrrrrrrrr


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    In fairness the examples in the OP aren't English accents. English accents describe something and nothing and somefing and nuffing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,721 ✭✭✭Erik Shin


    Lia_lia wrote: »
    Most of the hippie crowd down in West Cork have English accents. A parent/both parents would have been English but these people have lived in Ireland their whole lives and have proper English accents. It's a bit weird.

    I was born in England and lived there for a few years. Had an English accent till I was about 11 but started putting on an Irish accent till it became my accent. Having an English accent in school in Kerry is bullying material!

    I agree completely....born in England, had a nice chelski accent and when I came to Tralee.... Wham... Brit go home time...had plenty of fights right up until 6th class, went home on a Friday Eve from school...came back Monday and had a big thick Kerry accent on me ...never had an ounce of bother after that :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,641 ✭✭✭Teyla Emmagan


    On a related point, one thing that always strikes me when watching old Irish media clips (like Reeling In The Years) is that we had our own Irish version of received pronunciation in the media and establishment here - an almost British-inflected (to my ears at least) Irish accent until, like Britain, you began to hear regional accents on the airwaves and television in more recent times.

    Yes, half the country seemed to talk like David Norris at one stage. It's amazing how much our national accent seems to have changed when you listen to the old clips. I think it was a hangover from colonialism, as if we all believed at one stage that to speak properly we had to sound English. But we seem to have relaxed now into realising our own accents are perfectly fine.

    These are plenty of Anglo Irish families here that would always have sounded quite English, despite being born and raised and educated here. Maybe they wanted to distinguish themselves from their bogger neighbours and the accent was one way to do that.

    It's very interesting anyway.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 54 ✭✭Dark Rabbit


    I've made the very same observation too. Also I've had a lot of friends go live in Australia but never pick up the accent.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,183 ✭✭✭✭Nekarsulm


    I think I heard once that David Norris had a severe speech impediment as a child and was sent to a speech therapist, (who must have been upper class British) and the speech patterns taught to him remain.

    I know our four year old developed a real Manchester twang from her childminder after a few months. It disappeared about six months later.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,628 ✭✭✭darkdubh


    I assumed for ages that Shane Ross was English, to me his accent sounds pure middle class English, it doesn't even sound posh Irish. According to his Wiki page he was educated in Trinity which I know is posh but people don't generally come out of there sounding like they're auditioning for Midsummer Murders. Did he make a conscious decision that he was going to speak like that?




  • Erik Shin wrote: »
    I agree completely....born in England, had a nice chelski accent and when I came to Tralee.... Wham... Brit go home time...had plenty of fights right up until 6th class, went home on a Friday Eve from school...came back Monday and had a big thick Kerry accent on me ...never had an ounce of bother after that :D

    Ye should really have gone to school in South Kerry or West Cork. Lots of English accents...and the odd Dutch or German too...ah the hippies were great for extending our cultural horizons...


  • Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭Lawros Tache


    darkdubh wrote: »
    I assumed for ages that Shane Ross was English, to me his accent sounds pure middle class English, it doesn't even sound posh Irish. According to his Wiki page he was educated in Trinity which I know is posh but people don't generally come out of there sounding like they're auditioning for Midsummer Murders. Did he make a conscious decision that he was going to speak like that?

    Educated also in Rugby school, Warwickshire. Presumably he picked up the accent there during those formative teenage years and held onto it, either by accident or design.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 706 ✭✭✭Breaston Plants


    Yer man that used to do the football show on Today f.m, Michael McMullen, hilarious accent.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    ...
    These are plenty of Anglo Irish families here that would always have sounded quite English, despite being born and raised and educated here. Maybe they wanted to distinguish themselves from their bogger neighbours and the accent was one way to do that.

    It's very interesting anyway.
    The Anglo-Irish accent might sound quite English to many of us in Ireland, but sounds Irish to English people.

    I'd consider it a hybrid, with the English component having its origins in plantation/settlement in the 16th and 17th centuries, and reinforced by contact with English upper-class society over the years.

    It's strongly linked with wealth and social class. I suspect that some Irish people of more modest background have aped the accent over the years.

    I quite like the television programme Lords and Ladles, where viewers get to see and hear the owners of castles and mansions around the country. They seem to see themselves as Irish. As their families have been here for hundreds of years, it seems a bit churlish to say that they are not.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,226 ✭✭✭nikkibikki


    I've made the very same observation too. Also I've had a lot of friends go live in Australia but never pick up the accent.


    Yep my brother and his best friend moved 7yrs ago, they both have their Kilkenny accents! They've a few new words in their vocabulary is all. Like awesome!


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    I find the "RTE Neutral" type pronunciation sounds English-influenced to me. It would certainly make sense even now that we would have modeled our "upper-class" pronunciation of the language on the upper-class pronunciation of the country where it's a native tongue, i.e. England (with some natural evolving along the way). It's mostly a matter of clipping the words tighter, diction and maybe a bit less sing-song in the words. I know various people brought up in places with strong accents that, for one reason or another, speak in a neutral accent regardless, and they tend to get asked are they English (am one of them myself, although I also have an English parent so..)

    Thanks to constant media and foreign entertainment, some English influences get re-injected (in BBC English) and a lot of American influences.


    My own experience is that I sound English to Irish people and Irish to English people so I long ago gave up caring :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Educated also in Rugby school, Warwickshire. Presumably he picked up the accent there during those formative teenage years and held onto it, either by accident or design.

    The Rugby accent is nothing like Shane's.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,647 ✭✭✭lazybones32


    I know a lad who worked in London for the summer and came home with the accent. It used come out again after a few beers even 10 years on.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,834 ✭✭✭✭ThisRegard


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    In fairness the examples in the OP aren't English accents. English accents describe something and nothing and somefing and nuffing.

    Yeah, I don't think anyone in the OPs list have English accents.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Samaris wrote: »
    I find the "RTE Neutral" type pronunciation sounds English-influenced to me....
    We might be thinking of different examples, but I don't have that impression.

    There is, to my ear, a "neutral" Irish accent. By that, I mean an accent that is distinctively Irish, but not associated with any particular region in Ireland. It is generally spoken by educated middle-class people.

    Terry Wogan had it, Gay Byrne has it.

    [I have it. Nobody doubts that I am Irish but, unless given other clues, people cannot figure where in Ireland I come from.]


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,489 ✭✭✭Yamanoto


    bobbyss wrote: »
    Shane Ross:He must have lived in England for a long time?
    David Norris: Ditto?
    Declan Ganly:Ditto?
    There is a horse racing chap who does the racing, a Robert somebody?
    Charles Mitchell:ex RTE newsreader had a touch of one I believe.
    Martin Manserg;Former senator.
    Brian Farrell RTE
    Chris de Burgh
    Brian O'Connell: Former RTE London correspondent.

    Anyone else?

    How long do you have to live in England to acquire and retain the accent I wonder?

    Ganly, Mansergh & Brian Farrell were all born & raised in England.

    Norris and De Burgh were both born out foreign, into families posted abroad for British diplomatic & military missions.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,379 ✭✭✭donegaLroad


    Kenneth Brannagh, born and bred in Belfast



    Eamon Mallie, born and bred in Armagh



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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    We might be thinking of different examples, but I don't have that impression.

    There is, to my ear, a "neutral" Irish accent. By that, I mean an accent that is distinctively Irish, but not associated with any particular region in Ireland. It is generally spoken by educated middle-class people.

    Terry Wogan had it, Gay Byrne has it.

    [I have it. Nobody doubts that I am Irish but, unless given other clues, people cannot figure where in Ireland I come from.]

    We might be, true, but I think it is the same one. It is more "Irish", as in, it's distinctively Irish compared to even my accent (which is directly influenced by an English parent), but a lot of the subtle changes are similar to English pronunciation - the clipping for one.

    I would tend to hear people asking "Are you English?" of people with that neutral accent more than local accents, but that may also be down to an inability to directly place it and therefore going outside the country to do so. More Irishy accents tend to get asked are they American. In my limited experience anyway!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,489 ✭✭✭Yamanoto


    There is, to my ear, a "neutral" Irish accent. By that, I mean an accent that is distinctively Irish, but not associated with any particular region in Ireland. It is generally spoken by educated middle-class people.

    Terry Wogan had it, Gay Byrne has it.

    [I have it. Nobody doubts that I am Irish but, unless given other clues, people cannot figure where in Ireland I come from.]

    Agree completely.

    There's always been that sort of standard, essentially neutral accent knocking about, with no discernible trace of an American or British twang. It's by no means an unpleasant or offensive thing to hear - words are enunciated clearly & it tends to be an accent that's easily understood by anglophones everywhere.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 316 ✭✭noaddedsugar


    Lia_lia wrote: »
    Most of the hippie crowd down in West Cork have English accents. A parent/both parents would have been English but these people have lived in Ireland their whole lives and have proper English accents. It's a bit weird.

    I was born in England and lived there for a few years. Had an English accent till I was about 11 but started putting on an Irish accent till it became my accent. Having an English accent in school in Kerry is bullying material!

    I moved to Ireland when I was 4 and am now in my 30s and still have an English twang in my accent. You'd never guess I was from Yorkshire though, just that I am English. My kids are born here with an Irish dad, go to school here etc and have an English accent in somethings that they say. It's just that I am their primary caregiver and the person they hang out with the most. As they get older and hang out with their friends more their accent is becoming more and more Irish, generic kind of Irish though you wouldn't be able to pin down where they are from.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,182 ✭✭✭bobbyss


    It is strange how you can hold onto an accent after such little exposure to it after all those years. The whole idea of acquisition and retention of language is strange.
    Forget to mention Kenneth brannagh. I know little about him other than he was born in Ulster and then moved on to England although after how many years I don't know. I saw him on telly in the Billy trilogy as a young fella with a strong Norn Iron accent and couldn't believe what it developed into or how. I assume in England he was surrounded by people who spoke similarly. I libe English dialects: Liverpool, Newcastle and so on. I think they are great. Graham Norton would be known as someone with an Irish accent but heavily impregnated by a posh English twang.
    I suppose it has to do with the wiring in your brain and exposure.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 484 ✭✭jeanjolie


    dd972 wrote: »
    I wouldn't go as far to say the chap harboured any anglophobic sentiments, however I do believe that most Irish people would sub-consciously resist any natural morphing or accent change that might naturally happen after being in a place for a length of time if that place is England, we don't want to be known as or thought of as English, whereas I've encountered Irish-born people who've lived in the U.S or Canada for years and they seem more relaxed about letting a twang from those places enter their voices, even if it's unintended.

    An English accent is rejected as the antithesis of an Irish one, even if you had Irish parents, a gealicised name and spoke fluent Irish, anything to do with an English birthplace or accent automatically renders someone 'not Irish' and 'not one of our special tribe' for some.

    Hmmm..I don't know about that. My parents are also non-Irish and they've experienced the same phenomenon living abroad where back home they sound 'different' but here they sound distinctively African.

    I don't buy into the idea that accents are impossible to remove with age. Aside from the actor I mentioned on the first page, I know a black woman from Uganda who sounded like a typical African and managed to lose her accent after living in the US and UK for 10 years. The reason I believe was her willingless as well as immersion. I get the feeling that people who can't lose their accent are tied closely with family and cultural identity back home.

    I understand accents are difficult to perfect but honestly, I really don't think it's possible to struggle to lose some or most of your accent if you're open minded to 'losing your identity' and immersing yourself in a completely different culture. Just doesn't seem possible.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,078 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    bobbyss wrote: »
    Irish people with English accents.

    Shane Ross:He must have lived in England for a long time?
    David Norris: Ditto?
    Declan Ganly:Ditto?
    There is a horse racing chap who does the racing, a Robert somebody?
    Charles Mitchell:ex RTE newsreader had a touch of one I believe.
    Martin Manserg;Former senator.
    Brian Farrell RTE
    Chris de Burgh
    Brian O'Connell: Former RTE London correspondent.

    Anyone else?

    How long do you have to live in England to acquire and retain the accent I wonder?

    Not so sure any of those on your list have an ENGLISH accent. Shane Ross slightly?

    Tracy Piggott has an English accent.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,721 ✭✭✭Erik Shin


    LordSutch wrote: »
    Not so sure any of those on your list have an ENGLISH accent. Shane Ross slightly?

    Tracy Piggott has an English accent.

    That's possibly because she's English, only moved to Ireland in her 20's


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭ Rayne Tart Cockpit


    Irish and English people seem to be mutually incapable of picking up each other's accents. The West Cork people are probably the best example, there are God knows how many Poles, Nigerians, Americans, Brazilians etc walking around with Cark biy accents after being here five years and then those limey bastards there for decades sounding like they just stepped off the plane.

    There certainly is an element of class and social mobility to it, just how ferociously some Irish people sneer at some accents and dialects, mostly the "culchie" ones and also the "rough" ones is weird. Whether it's insecurity, internalised anti-Irishness or what the fcuk, I don't know.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,078 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    I worked with a man from Kerry who had moved to England thirty years before, and he still had his Kerry accent, while on the other hand I had a good friend, who having gone to live in Englnd, developed a strong London accent within about four years!

    Something to do with a musical ear I guess?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    We might be thinking of different examples, but I don't have that impression.

    There is, to my ear, a "neutral" Irish accent. By that, I mean an accent that is distinctively Irish, but not associated with any particular region in Ireland. It is generally spoken by educated middle-class people.

    Terry Wogan had it, Gay Byrne has it.

    [I have it. Nobody doubts that I am Irish but, unless given other clues, people cannot figure where in Ireland I come from.]

    In fairness both Terry and Gay had accents.


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